I was born during the 1960s in China.  That was a period when the country sought to remove all forms of superstition.  Songs of the Cultural Revolution could be heard everywhere and everyone was reading literature written by Chairman Mao.  Everyone shared a unified belief system (the realization of communism as the only form of truth), believing that only communism can save China.  My parents were all members of the communist party, who believed that only the material world exists.  I was raised by my paternal grandmother.  As far as I could recall, I had often heard my grandmother, uncles and aunties, and elders in the family talk about stories concerning ghosts and gods.  I began to regard ghosts as evil beings, and that God is just.  This led me to become a person who believes in the existence of God.  I had always felt that there was a God who took care of me, and that there is a cause and effect to everything that happened.  I also believed that the soul of a person continues to exist even after he dies.

When I was older, I visited many places.  Each time when I passed by a temple, I would enter it to worship.  I recall in the year 1992, a qigong meet was held in Tianjin, I worked there for a week as a committee member.  I witnessed many supernatural happenings and was even more persuaded that God exits.  But I was very confused.  At that time, I thought that all religions were the same.  I was also curious about every religion and hoped to find some answers.  At that time in China, Buddhism and Taoism were more influential than Christianity.  As for Christianity, except for some biased interpretations that I learnt from textbooks, I had little or no understanding.  Although I was ignorant of Christianity, I was not resistant towards it.

Before I believed in the Lord, I had never thought that I would one day become a Christian.  This is just like today after I have become a Christian; I find it even more difficult to imagine what I was like before I became a Christian.

Ever since my eighty odd years old maternal auntie came to know Christ, many relatives around me, including my mother, my younger sister’s whole family, Furong, Pengshan also came to know the Lord.  Since they believed in the Lord, they received peace and joy.  God also changed them greatly.  Although they were living far away from me, the changes in them made an impression on me.  As a result, my heart gradually opened up.  Having passed 40 years old when one is no longer confused by the perplexity of life, today I firmly believe that there is a God in this world and that He is the God who loves us.

After I believed in the Lord, as I now recall the prior events that happened, they seemed uneventful.  Neither was there a clear point in time at which I was suddenly “enlightened.”  The path to knowing the Lord taken by each brother and sister in the Lord may be different, but everyone went through a time when we struggled and sought out matters related to the intellect, emotionally and spiritually.  After I came to know the Lord, many friends asked me: “What is your greatest life change?”  I thought about it and I felt that one of my greatest changes was that I have become more discerning towards what is good and evil, and what is sin and love.

Telling some white lies, cutting down the esteem of others so as to raise my own esteem, being critical, complaining in anger and being narrow minded, indulging in selfish and rash desires, these sins had become a natural part of me through the years.  But after I believed in the Lord, when I sin in these areas, I would feel very unrestful, and could not bear to continue to bluff myself and others and live life in this way.  This ugly side is being replaced: I was able to love others a bit more and more sincerely.

But I want to say this: after I believed in the Lord, we still sin.  Just because we are Christians, we do not become immediately perfect.  In fact, there will be times when non-Christians can do better than Christians.  But God does not despise a heart that seeks after God, a heart that loves God, a heart that strives hard, a heart that is contrite and a heart that is humble.

My other change is this, I began to experience a peace and joy that I had never tasted before.  These gradually entered my heart.  This peace and joy are a result of my belief and the joy of salvation.  This peace and joy is a result of having understood the meaning of life.  This peace and joy is a result of the mission to share with others the love of Christ . . .

Chinese often say: “One gains clarity in life at forty.”  In my forties, the emptiness and worries in my heart caused me to step into church.  The sense of holiness during prayers, the peace I felt in the hymns that were sung, the moving testimonies, and the kindness in the relationship between brothers and sisters in the Lord, these brought to me the peace and joy that I had been seeking.